The Knoxville, Tenn., pro went wire-to-wire to win on his home lake — his second career Opens victory on the fishery — and received the top prize of a Triton 19 TrX/Mercury 200 Pro XS rig valued at $45,000, along with $5,291 in cash. He weighed in a 15-pound, 9-ounce limit to finish with 50-3. His previous victory on Douglas came in May 2014.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The 2018 Bassmaster Opens Series will again include nine tournaments on prime bass fishing waters, but the series format will be markedly different from recent seasons, B.A.S.S. announced today.

“We are excited about the new Opens format,” said B.A.S.S. CEO Bruce Akin. “It’s designed to provide opportunities for the best bass fishermen to prove their fishing skills on a variety of waters as they earn their way into the Bassmaster Classic and Elite Series.”

Thirty years of fishing the James River paid off for Virginia pro Rick Morris, who won the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open No. 2 on Saturday. The Lake Gaston, Va., angler weighed in a 16-pound, 11-ounce five-bass limit and finished with a three-day total of 43-15 to clinch the pro division title.

Ed Loughran doesn’t necessarily consider himself a “cerebral” angler. He says he’s more of a “grinder” whose work ethic has helped him collect a check in 13 of the 25 B.A.S.S. tournaments he’s fished dating back to 1993.Still, Loughran is sharp enough to know he needs a really good showing at the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open No. 2 if he wants to fulfill his dream to join the Bassmaster Elite Series one day.

The smallmouth bass bite on Oneida Lake was incredible this week. The smallies already were fat, and yet they still were hungry. Just about every angler in the field was hammering them, and it was that bite that figured to make or break an angler’s chances of winning the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open No. 1.

The 198 anglers competing on the boater side of the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Northern Open No. 1 hammered the smallmouth on Oneida Lake during Thursday’s opening round. But Steve York wanted more. After placing 19th in the first round, York caught a mixed bag of smallmouth and largemouth Friday and brought a tournament-best 19 pounds, 11 ounces to the scales. It was enough to propel the Bronson, Mich., pro to the top of the leaderboard with a two-day total of 36-12.

This year, the rankings highlight the Top 12 fisheries in the nation regardless of location. The remaining lakes are ranked within one of four regions (Northeastern, Southeastern, Central and Western), so readers can easily identify the Top 25 lakes nearest them.

The Bassmaster Junior National Championship is a team bass tournament, and all but one of the 51 teams are made up of two anglers between the ages of 7 and 13.
The one solo angler, Rein Golubjatnikov proved Tuesday that one is more than enough when he brought in a five-bass limit weighing 15 pounds, 13 ounces. The 13-year-old New Yorker seized the first-round lead in the two-day junior championship on Carroll County 1,000 Acre Recreational Lake in northwest Tennessee.

He made the biggest splash of his professional career today by winning the Bass Pro Shops Central Open on the Sabine River here on the Texas/Louisiana border. Svebek weighed a limit of five bass on Saturday that totaled 12 pounds, 3 ounces. It gave him a three-day total of 36-12, which was just enough to vault over T-Roy Broussard, who led the tournament the first two days.